'This will stem the loss of capital': Executives react to Kenney's win

What Alberta Premier-Designate Jason Kenney promises to deliver

Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party soared to win a majority government in Alberta, unseating Premier Rachel Notley’s New Democratic Party on Tuesday night.

Business leaders and energy executives on Wednesday cheered the election result, expressing hope that the change in power will shore up sentiment in Alberta’s oil and gas sector. Here’s a look at some of the reaction:

“As an Albertan originally, I can tell you that it certainly has a feel of, ‘We now return you to regularly-scheduled programming’ in Alberta. As you know, when Premier Notley won, it was quite a shock to a lot of Albertans and she deserves a lot of credit for stick-handling a very difficult situation. Timing is everything in politics and hers wasn’t very good, but despite that I think the premier-elect was quite kind and gracious to her in his acknowledgement of her managing of this crisis.

"But that crisis persists and the reason it persists is of course, that we don’t have access to markets, and that is a critical issue that premier-elect Kenney is now speaking quite candidly and emotionally about. But it’s not easy to do.”

Goldy Hyder, president and CEO, Business Council of Canada

Alberta is now returning to its regularly scheduled program: Business Council of Canada

Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada, joins BNN Bloomberg's Amber Kanwar and Jon Erlichman for a look at what the first order of business is for Alberta Premier-Designate Jason Kenney.

"It's exactly what we need. The first thing he said was Alberta is open for business. There have been way too many negative messages about the business in Canada and the oil and gas business from various governments. And to see a politican stepping up and really bragging about the great things we can do — we've got clean Canadian energy, we're the most ethical in the world, we can get this done – is an awesome message for the public."

Jonathan Wright, president and CEO, Nuvista Energy

NuVista CEO hoping Kenney will be a champion for energy industry

Jonathan Wright, president and CEO at NuVista Energy, discusses his concerns about Bill C-69. He also talks about the value of NuVista's condensate, a light oil which is used as a diluent for the oil sands.

“I think that a lot of the business community in Calgary and Alberta are now ready to get back to business.

"There might need to be a change at the federal level come October to complete the change, but I think this is the first step and there are number of projects that were waiting on last night’s results that would be announced in the coming months that are going to move forward. So this will stem the loss of capital. As to whether it brings back a great deal of capital at this point in time without another change at the federal level, it remains to be seen.”

Jim Davidson, founder, GMP FirstEnergy

Alberta's energy sector ready to get back to business: GMP FirstEnergy's Jim Davidson

“We are very happy that Jason Kenney got in. I think he’ll be a very strong supporter for the oil and gas industry, which helps Alberta but it also helps Canada. One of the things that we see Jason Kenney doing is continue to progress the oil: pipelines, development of oil, and exports. But in addition, we’ve had dialogue with Kenney, who also wants to get the natural gas business into a more strong momentum business in Western Canada – because we have natural gas and liquids assets that could compete globally and against anybody in the world.”

Andy Mah, CEO of Advantage Oil & Gas, talks about how 10 natural gas players are teaming up to help spur the construction of an LNG export facility in British Columbia.

“We’d like to see consistent support for the industry akin to what we’ve had for the last 10 or 15 years in Saskatchewan: consistent fiscal regime, sensible regulation, support for pipelines. I think that’s what we’re looking for in Alberta.”